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Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

The link to a normal Whale sound is the same link as this chap at 52 Hertz.

I do find his path tracks interesting and they do seem to have a central point and do wonder what is of note there, food!

Supprised no DNA samples have been taken, though I suspect we can't eliminate some form of polution inducing a genetic mutation. We have humans with high-pitched voices so anything is possible.

But fair play to the chap in carrying on trying to find a mate in over 20 years, now that is tenacity.

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Here are the other whale sounds: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds_whales.html

Near the arctic is where the food is, all baleen whales migrate there for that reason. The other end of the migration is tropical waters where they mate and give birth.

But these migration patterns are probably instinctual, so no surprise this guy is following them - and if he didn't migrate north, he'd probably starve.

Yes, the tracks are interesting. Note how the whale often tracks back and then takes a different route as if he/she was unsure about the route (something we often do on new/unexplored forest trails so that we don't get lost). The sharp turns might therefore be some sort of a landmark for the whale.

The sharp turns are poorly interpolated data points from a small data set.

Very good point. Datasets on maps realy should have the ability to see the resolution of the dataset or a zoomable timeline so people can see how the data plots on a map and its potentual variations. This would avoid seeing data from a limited viewpoint. Only good example of how having mulple viewpoints of the same data would be a picture of lighnight that appears to loop, lightnight travels in 3d and if viewed from some angles will appear from a 2d perspective to loop up and around back onto itself. It is a illution based upon a limited viewpoint of the data and in the case of the data plots without the samplerling period (which could be week or day apart) and how far a this whale can swim in that time to allow for a better perspective of the plotted data.

In short, I concur, whales don't do handbrake turns and the data is a literal plot of data points from course samplerling.

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